Protection Racket

You already know the answer. This year’s ballot asks us to buy off on a state income tax. Not for you and me, surely. No, it’s a soak-the-rich scheme, FSVO “rich” that means people who make more money than I do, but not so much more that I can’t possibly envision what it would feel like to be such a rock star. It’s a soak-the-millionaire-next-door scheme.

I’m all for an income tax, but not until our ugly sales tax is repealed. How long do you think it will be before everybody pays an income tax? Hint: you’ll need to start filing right away, whether you are liable for the taxes or not. How else will you prove you’re one of the innocent poor?

About a microsecond later, that “progressive” tax will progress to your bank account and take a beady-eyed look around. Never has any government met a tax it didn’t like and couldn’t expand. Unless you’re a dewy-eyed idiot (or have out of state retirement property), vote NO on Initiative Measure 1098.

Speaking of expansion, King County would like another couple of tenth-points on every retail transaction you make. Hey, times are tough all over, right? The county dug us a $60 million hole, and would like to fill it in with increased expropriations. We’re pushing toward ten percent on the sales tax. For linguistic perspective, note that the classical definition of “decimation” is to reduce by one-tenth, as in the sentence, “King County wants to decimate my spending money.”

You feel their pain, right? I know I do. Like many across the country, our household is wrassling with unemployment, lack of access to health care, and the tight budgeting required by the “Depression that dare not speak its name.” Even so, we’re willing to pony up our fair share. We use roads and schools. We’re happy to have a fire department and police headquarters close by (we take cookies to the Christmas shifts), and we pay up promptly for sewer and power.

It’s hard not to be annoyed by this demand at this particular moment in history, though. If your family spent $30,000 on taxable transactions last year — things like clothing, tires, CD-Rs and other such exotica — your sales tax contribution at current rates of 9.5 percent was $2,850.00. Adding the requested 0.2 percent (doesn’t sound like much, does it?) would increase that to $2,910.00. We’re assuming the same $30,000 outlay, since chances are YOU didn’t get a raise this year.

Well, heck, that’s only 60 more bucks out of your pocket, right? And here’s the great news: 60 dollars times the population of King County comes out to … more than $112 million. That oughtta cover it!

So, should we tighten our belts for the good of all? After all, one of the threatened service rollbacks is that we may have to cut back on enforcement services by the King County Sheriffs office. Let’s check in with county employees. Seems like many of them voted to give up their COLAs for 2011 — but not the sheriffs deputies. They’re in line for a five percent pay raise. For lack of an accurate term (e.g. “gun to your head”), let’s call it a COLA.

Like a lot of struggling Americans, I didn’t get a pay raise this year. King County seniors didn’t get a COLA this year (and their bus pass price is tripling). And none of us will get five percent better service from the dog-shooting, girl-slapping, felon-fondling deputies of the King County Sheriff’s office, no matter how much we pay them.